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| A picture taken in Barcelona on March 5, 2009, shows Iranian Ameneh Bahrami holding a photograph of herself before she was blinded by a man who threw acid in her face. Bahrami pardoned her attacker, forgoing her right to have him blinded in 'eye for an eye' justice. (AFP Photo) |
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Tehran. An
Iranian man convicted of throwing acid in the face of a female student who was
to have been blinded himself on Sunday in retribution was pardoned by his
victim, the state-run television Web site said.
“With the
request of Ameneh Bahrami, the acid attack victim, Majid [Movahedi] who was
sentenced for ‘qesas’ [‘eye for an eye’-style justice] was pardoned at the last
minute” after she decided to forgo her right, it said.
Movahedi
was sentenced in February 2009 to be blinded in both eyes after being convicted
of hurling acid in the face of university classmate Bahrami when she repeatedly
spurned his offer of marriage.
The
court-ordered blinding of Movahedi was postponed at the 11th hour in mid-May,
with no official reason given. Bahrami told the ISNA news agency she pardoned
her attacker because “God talks about ‘qesas’ in the Koran but he also
recommends pardon since pardon is greater than qesas.
“I
struggled for seven years for this verdict to prove to people that the person
who hurls acid should be punished through qesas, but today I pardoned him
because it was my right. I did it for my country, since all other countries
were looking to see what we would do,” she added.
Tehran
prosecutor Abbas Jafari Dolatabadi hailed Bahrami’s decision, but also said
that the judiciary would have carried out the blinding sentence.
“Today in
hospital the blinding of Majid Movahedi was to have been carried out in the
presence of an eye specialist and judiciary representative, when Ameneh
pardoned him,” he was quoted as saying by the ISNA news agency.
“However
she demanded blood money for her injuries,” Dolatabadi said, referring to
compensation allocated to the victims of violent crimes when they suffer
serious injuries, but he did not elaborate.
Agence France-Presse
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